


Sensation and Perception

by FairTradeHoney



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Holding Hands, I made myself sad, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2269536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairTradeHoney/pseuds/FairTradeHoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sales associate Cas reflects upon how becoming human has affected his senses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sensation and Perception

Cas lies on his back on an old flannel blanket with his eyes closed, sun warming his skin, lost in his senses. He does this often as of late, finding it necessary to take regular mental breaks from his life, from the overwhelming weight of no longer being an angel. 

Ironically, it’s becoming human that makes checking out possible in the first place. He had assumed that losing his grace would have left him feeling like his senses had been dulled, that everything would seem desaturated and bland. He was wrong, sort of. He’s fully aware that the range of colors he can comprehend is narrower and that his sensitivity to pitch is now quite poor, yet at the same time, even as he technically sees and hears less, he _perceives_ so much more. It’s as if there’s a freshly dug waterway in his mind connecting his senses to his emotions. Or perhaps the channel was there all along, but his grace had been a levee, keeping the emotional weight of his senses at bay. Regardless, all Cas knows is that there are times when the blue of a clear summer sky is overwhelming in its beauty, and even right now, the gentle chirping of a whippoorwill provides him an inexplicable measure of peace. And so, from time to time, it’s all too easy for Cas to surrender himself to sensation.

Touch is perhaps the most different now that he’s lost his grace. As an angel he would touch other people occasionally, to heal or to fight, but these were practical, even perfunctory touches, all very utilitarian. Sure, there were times he’d give a hug or a comforting shoulder squeeze, but for him these displays of affection rang false, a mimicry of what he thought he was supposed to do rather than what his body instinctively wanted to do. While the sentiment behind the motions was real, nearly always he failed to understand how his actions actually expressed those sentiments.

And touch now? _Touch is something else._ The magic of tiny nerve endings, signalling from his fingertips all the way up to his brain—it is literally electric and inherently expressive. Cas finds little that compares to the touch of another human being, no matter how small, like the brush of fingertips when he hands someone their change or a pat on the back for a job well done. It’s so much more than the physics suggests, as even the most basic contact with another person leads the tensions Cas carries in his shoulders to fall away. And so, as a human, Cas craves touch. 

But if he’s honest, there’s one person’s touch in particular that Cas desires. Right now, listening to the birds and feeling the warmth on his cheeks, Cas' attention isn’t focused of the softness of the blanket on his neck or the gentle rub of cotton at his elbows. While those sensations are lovely, he is instead attuned to the pressure of Dean’s palm against his. He’s fixated on the feel of Dean’s rough, strong fingers clasped in his own. He’s consumed with the weighty sensation of Dean’s body, warm at his side. Dean’s touch is a new sensation that feels old. Impossibly, illogically, it feels like home. 

"Mmhmmm," Cas exhales, a cross between a sigh and a moan, contented to lie silent in the sun with Dean indefinitely, feeling happier than he has in months. He’s just about to turn to face his hunter, anticipating the jolt of his bright green eyes, when he hears a click, followed by a strange mechanical whirring, jarring and incongruous. 

It takes some time for his eyes to adjust to the almost pitch-dark, but he recognizes where he is long before then. He doesn’t know how he could have confused the scratchy acrylic of his second-hand sleeping bag with softened flannel. He also should have remembered that it’s impossible to feel the sun on your face and hear a whippoorwill at the same time. Most heartbreaking is the realization that he should have known better than to ever imagine Dean—who sent him away at the time he needed him most—was anything other than a dream. 

He rolls over, listening to the hum of the ice machine, and thinks of Dean. Quite palpably, the weight of his worries returns to rest upon his shoulders. He lies silent on the floor, despondent in the newly acquired awareness that the false contentment of dreams makes reality's unfulfilled desires even more difficult to bear. 


End file.
